


A Color and a Song

by satin_doll



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Sherlolly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 08:46:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6559852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satin_doll/pseuds/satin_doll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sherlock realizes Molly has become engaged to Tom. A kind of prose poem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Color and a Song

Some parts have a color. The color is sandpaper on skin, is dark blood, is a man howling in the streets. Some parts sing. The song is clear water, is a field of stars on a summer night, is kitten fur on a child’s cheek.

The color is the cold of glaring lights overhead that never darken. It is an endless tunnel of dirt. It is heaving sobs without tears. 

The song is home after a long journey. It is every voice that’s ever loved him. It is the smell of clean skin. 

The colored parts are packed away into a dim lit room, far from anything important, anything that matters. The song is carried in his heart, a gift. 

He will offer the gift. If she takes it, he will learn to give her more. He will learn to see what other gifts she might love, and he will strive to give them to her. He has been barren, dry, cold like metal. He wants to be lushness, green, full and free like a forest. He will learn these things from her because she knows them, and she has wanted to teach him. He will learn of seeds and growing. He will learn of love. 

The sparkles are brittle, hard and sharp, pointed crystals in his eyes. They wound him. He feels a pale haze of color shimmering in his head. The song is out of tune, dischordent. He has no way to make the song right again, and the color grows, seeping into the world. The door to the dim lit room swings open and he fears what’s inside will overcome him. He turns, hears the last echoes of the song fading behind him as he walks away.

Another gives her gifts, and his offering seems so small and weak beside them. She might choose the one he offers but it is tarnished now by the color and he holds it back. He must learn to live with the color ghosts and forget the song. 

I would have given you my soul. I would have offered you every fiber of my being for a chance to learn from you, to let you open me up and mold me into a being worthy of you. Had you waited, I would have come to you clean and new, like a baby, a blank slate. You could have written your heart on mine. 

But you didn’t wait, did you. You couldn’t, and that is my own fault. I should have asked. I knew what you wanted. Stupid to think someone else couldn’t give it to you. So we part, you to your new gifts and me to fight off the painful color threatening to overcome the world.

Goodbye, Molly Hooper. I hope you’ll be very happy. You deserve it.

**Author's Note:**

> This was an experiment. I don't think Sherlock was happy at the end of that day of crime solving with Molly, and I don't think it was about missing John. I think he saw a chance - and then realized it was too late. This is heart speaking, the heart he refuses to admit exists. I think that day, he came face to face with it. 
> 
> I realize this is not a story exactly. I don't know what it is. Maybe somebody else knows. :\ I didn't want to throw it out so it wound up here. An exercise in being overly dramatic. :D


End file.
